Weekly Dvar Torah: Unity Without Division
Oh wow, what a week!
We are accustomed to learning wonderful things in books. We learn about lofty spiritual G-dly worlds and things. We learn about spiritual lofty levels in the service of Hashem. We learn about our mission in life and the purpose of creation to make for G-d a dwelling place in this physical world.
Many times, the spiritual lofty ideas and concepts remain just that, nice wonderful teachings and ideas in the books. If we want to connect and apply what we learn, we must work hard to make the connection. And even then, we feel it to be out of our reach.
Sometimes however, this happens at such a rapid speed, it comes straight at you. What you learn and what you are living, is so in your face that you can’t miss it, and you connect with the ideas in a most natural way. You wonder, how could it be any other way.
For a Lubavitcher Chossid, who follows the customs that the Rebbe instituted In the Chabad calendar, this week is a most amazing G-dly week. And it came across so naturally, that we can only connect and feel the G-dliness and the spirituality in our physical bones.
This week we started the 44th cycle of learning the Rambam. We learned how the world and G-d are one, because the entire existence comes from His essence alone. We also learned the laws of day to day behavior in our mundane activities of eating, drinking and sleeping, and the proper behavior amongst people and business befitting a G-d fearing Jew.
In Tanya we learned that the only way one can observe G-d’s commandments, is by doing them physically. You cannot just meditate and have all the proper intentions, it’s only action that counts.
In the Parsha we inaugurated a physical dwelling place for G-d in this physical world. A place where every Jew can serve and connect with G-d. On that day Nadav and Avihu felt an urge to cleave to G-d to the point that their souls left their bodies, they did not appreciate the importance of the physical world, and this was considered by G-d as a very grave error. We also learn that the physical ordinary food that we eat must be in line with the spiritual.
In the Hayom Yom we learned about fusing the highest elevations with the lowest mundane acts. We learned how the blessings of the Kohanim comprise a full union of the highest spiritual levels and the lowest. We learn how we must take charge of our physical urges and train ourselves to rise higher. We learn how the foundations of the Jewish people have been entrusted to the Jewish woman, which serves as precursor to the woman’s role when Moshiach comes, when she will be the crown of it all.
The point is, we tend to separate the spiritual from the physical. The worldly from the G-dly. Somehow, we think that living in this physical mundane world and being G-dly, don’t go together. Either you are a spiritual person who is completely removed from the mundane, he serves G-d by disconnecting from day to day physical activities, even the most necessary. Or you get involved and live the physical and you are not on any spiritual level.
But when you pay attention to what we learned this week, you discover a world the way G-d intended it to be.
If Hashem wanted people who live a totally spiritual life, He had plenty of angels in the spiritual worlds. There was no need to create a physical world in which G-d is completely concealed, and is not the first thing that you see or meet.
G-d created a physical world because He wanted us mortals, who are G-dly challenged humans, to use what we need to survive, and use it in the best possible way which recognizes the Creator, and reveals G-dliness, by using the mundane as G-d intended.
We must eat, we must sleep, we must go to work to earn a living. And we must do it the Kosher way, the honest way, with purpose and mission, not just like the lesser creatures who eat, drink and sleep just to survive. We sleep because we need to be rested to be able to serve Hashem the next day. When we eat we must eat the proper Kosher foods, and before we eat we make the proper blessing to acknowledge the one who provides us with the food to sustain us, and we eat so that we will be healthy and strong to do G-d’s will in this world.
On the other hand, when we do a Mitzvah, we cannot meditate on the spiritual intentions, we must take a physical pair of Tefillin and place it on our arm and head, or we take a candle made of wax and light it for Shabbos. And the blessing must be uttered with our physical lips, thinking the holy words won’t do.
And in Rambam we learn exactly how to do all the mundane activities in a manner that brings honor and respect for G-d and for us and for the physical objects we use to live.
This is the total fusion of G-d and His world coming together, as intended in creation. The Creator and His creations are inseparable and completely united as one. The absolute Oneness of G-d.
Have a United G-dly Shabbos,
Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
